Sunday, August 5, 2012

Puttering....

This week I tried an experiment.

When it comes to figure prep, I can at times be.... let's call it "overzealous". After mold line clean up, I usually scrub the miniature, air dry for a day or so, prime (lately with Tamiya primer), and then start to base coat. This is a long process. I've read many posts on the web with folks successfully skipping many of these steps. For the Splintered Light fauns, rather than priming and then base coating, I tried using Rustoleum Camouflage Earth Brown to prime and base coat in one. Yes, I probably could have ordered one of those Army Painter primers, but no suitable tone was available at my local game store. Walmart had the camo paint.

So pros and cons:

Pro: Earth Brown is a very dark brown. It provides a great natural tone for shadows which I prefer over black.

Pro: Speeds up painting

Pro: Super dead flat. Flatter than flat. Fall off the edge of the world flat.

Pro: Cheap (under $4)

Con: Not quite as tough as real primer. A couple of high point rubbed off during handling.

So for me, the paint is looking good as a first step for fantasy figure. Once these figures are finished I will give them several clear coats and see if the paint job holds up under use. Here's a mid-point shot of the archers:

Also worked on the antennae for the Blue Moon SF building. I've built a mechanism to attach the mast and the dish and added a ring to the bottom of the mast just to make it look a little cleaner where it sits on the roof.

Here's a slightly closer view of the dish with the center of the array added. The brass, both mesh and rods, are all K&B, and the styrene is Evergreen. The mesh was formed around a small jar and while taped to the jar the Evergreen strips were glued on with CA

The mast is attached with an assortment of Evergreen I-beams, square tubes, and strips. Unfortunately, I did not get the I-beam on very symmetrically, but these photos exaggerate the offset a bit. Hopefully it will be nothing you notice on the table.

After this photo session, the antennae got primed. Should be able to get it painted and weathered this week